Your thinking is right! The winter of 2009-10 had a number of events. From the earliest measurable snowfall on record in December, to the deep freeze in early January, and the 6th coldest February on record with another measurable snow. The El Nino pattern was in full swing this winter as system after system rolled up the Texas coast with plenty of rain, clouds, and too many dreary gray days to count. Even though it is now March, we still can’t seem to shake the cold, or the rain. I, like many others are anxious for Spring to get here!
Let’s start with temperatures. Overall the winter was colder than average. When you take the 90 days of climatological winter (December, January, February), the average temperature is about 53.8 degrees. This number comes from averaging all of the normal highs and lows for those months. This winter we finished at 49.0 degrees. Almost 4 degrees below normal, which is pretty significant for a three month average. In south Louisiana we don’t have any average highs that are below 60 degrees, but this year we failed to reach a 60 degree high 52 times! In fact only 26 of the 90 days did we have an above average temperature day! We dropped below the freezing mark 17 times this winter, compared to only 7 times last winter. We had almost as many days below freezing this winter as we’ve had for the past three! There weren’t any breaks this year either. We’ll go warm, then cold, then warm again in a normal winter. When I’m talking about breaks, I mean a day where it hits 70 or higher. Over the past 10 years, we’ve hit 70 degrees about 33 times on average. This year, only 17. 80 degrees? Forget about it…last winter we hit 80 once, this year..0! By the way, February 2010 was tied for the 6th coldest February on record. Only 2 days were at or above average. The average temperature was 47.4 degrees, normal is 54.3. We had 6 days in January where we dropped into the 20s. The lowest temp of the winter…20 degrees on January 10th, sandwiched in between a pair of 21s on the 9th and the 11th. And you wonder why everything is brown outside!
Snow…Twice this winter. December 4th and February 12th. We’ve had two snows in one winter before, but never three. I was really hoping to break that record last week, but the snow never came. December 4th we picked up 0.5″ of snow, and on February 12th we picked up 0.4″.
Rain…Above normal for the winter. A total of 18.62″, or a little over 3″ above. We had over 10″ of rain in December, almost 6″ in February. We caught a break in January with only 2.02″. Probably because the first 10 days of January were so cold that the air couldn’t hold any moisture!
March is coming in like a lion with the rain, and eventually this afternoon the wind. It should be cloudy tomorrow, with sunshine returning Wednesday and holding for the rest of the week. Temperatures aren’t expected to climb to normal until late this weekend when we might hit 70 on Sunday.
StormTeam3 Meteorologist Dave Baker
Good Morning Acadiana-Weekdays 5-7am
A sharp cold front will usher in winter-like temperatures back into Acadiana early Tuesday morning. Highs Wednesday may not make it out of the 40s despite sunshine returning by the afternoon. It will be dry in New Orleans too for Tuesday afternoon/evening for the Saints Parade but dress warmly as temperatures will stay in the 40s accompanied by a blustery northwest wind. Temperatures will likely drop to near or below the freezing mark in Acadiana for Wednesday morning so it’s time again to tend to the tender vegetation. Wednesday will be cool, partly sunny and dry, but clouds will be increasing late in the day. It will get interesting Thursday as a quick-developing storm system will likely bring cold rains to the area. This may bring winter weather conditions to the northern part of the state and as close as Central Louisiana at the onset of the precipitation and perhaps when things wind down Thursday night. If the track of the developing surface low goes farther south than is currently forecast we could see a forecast tilted to some sort of wintry mix. Right now though we’ll go with very chilly rains with at least 1-2″ of rain possible…if not maybe a little more. In the wake of Thursday’s system cold and dry weather should follow that will likely carry us through much of the Mardi Gras holiday weekend. Showers could return though for Fat Tuesday…so stay tuned to KATC for that, updates on the weather system tonight, and then for the one on Thursday…as always the forecast is subject to change!
After a freezing and frosty Wednesday morning we’ll see a nice warm-up for Wednesday afternoon as mostly sunny skies works in concert with a developing southeasterly wind. High and some mid-clouds will begin to invade late Wednesday with clouds thickening Wednesday night keeping our temperatures in the lower 40s. A vigorous storm system in the Northern Rockies will race southeastward through the next 24 hours allowing for patchy light rain to develop for Thursday morning. It appears that there will be little or no threat of any kind of wintry weather with this system as the precipitation should initiate below the freezing layer aloft. The rain should be light in nature but more moderate rainfall rates may be possible through Thursday mid-morning. The rain will depart the area well before the arctic air begins to settle in but do expect windy and much colder conditions to return for late Thursday night into Friday morning. Temperatures should drop into the low-mid 20s for Friday morning while wind chills will likely drop into the teens. Arctic air-masses are like molasses when the spill into the region and it appears that the coldest air will 
arrive Friday night into Saturday. This should put our lows Friday night/Saturday morning near 20 (plus or minus a few degrees) with wind chills likely in the lower teens or single digits for Saturday morning. It will likely be even colder Saturday night/Sunday morning without any wind with lows likely to approach the mid-upper teens. Daytime highs will stay in the 30s both Friday and Saturday and if high clouds linger on Friday we may not make it much above freezing Friday afternoon. This could become quite problematic for frozen pipe issues as we will likely see a 72 hour period where only a few hours will be above freezing. The good news is that the long range outlook calls for much milder weather the second into the third week of the month…hopefully this will be the coldest weather we see all winter!